mr_jgb comments

Some historians have reviewed and opined that World War 2, was triggered by Japan invading China (Manchuria in1937), and then its greater ambitions and alliances from there. The world will get bigger conflict and end in greater global war conflict, when you have myopic egoistic leaders widening a neighborhood historic conflict, to that of regional, and then global conflict drawing more players and more complications, with potential weapons of mass destruction beneath.
This tragic direction and course seem to have started.

Just like in life, a husband and wife conflict with get bigger and bigger and too complicated to be resolved when more parties are added in to take side, then pride and stubborn-ness hardened and "all-out war of divorce/hatred" becomes the outcome. Husband & wife conflict should be left to their own to resolve and drag in more parties.
Solution: Big conflict maketh into smaller conflict, small conflict maketh no conflict.

Reforms on the wages are near impossible.
Real reforms are asking the Japanese not be Japanese:

Discard seniority system. Why would all the old power brokers in Japanese firms & LDP retire themselves?
Discard harmonious conformity. Why would Japanese who are trained since young abandon their deep seated psychological security pillar? Japanese treasured this more than truth. This is a conformist herd nation. The people in power love such a system as they can rule for a long, long time.

This rise is an opening salvo. Global inflation trend has started and reversed after 40 years of deflation. Japan will not be an exception. One key factor is all major economies including US, China, Japan, etc are diverting more resources to military expenditures. The peace dividend that helps interest rates go lower and global economy more productive following the end of Cold War in 1980s is gone. Global interest rates are starting to rise. The world will be less peaceful, because of leaders taking peace/pacifism for granted.

Generally foreign cars are a hard sell in Japan.
Car businesses are very competitive in Japan and very much a local market with its quirks. Foreign cars are not competitive here. Don't bark the wrong tree.
Nevertheless, Japan has numerous non-official & hidden trade barriers that effectively block imports and encourage exports:

The road to self destruction is wide & foolish & full of sorrow throughout history. Japanese ruling politicians after 70 years of peace is taking the pacifist peace for granted and steadily abandoning it to embrace war. Its a tragic show unfolding.

Headline news and Nikkei are fairly strong and as best as it can be but the fundamentals are unchanged:

Aging & declining population realities steadily coming
3rd arrow is a change in constitution arrow and not an economic & smaller government reform arrow
Fiscal stimulus expended now based on 2020 Olympics & military will be low productivity waste unlike in 1964
Increased tension with China runs the risk of sudden huge contraction in foreign tourists & trade relation
Government debts continue to balloon
Profits & export economy boosted by weak Yen; Trump will not let it continue.
It's a tough situation with little resolve to resolve.

Basically the "new" US trade rules to Japan & Asia will be nicely "phrased", but objectives are:

Japanese & Asian factories in US cannot be assembly plants but almost all parts must be sourced within USA.
Yen, Yuan, Won, etc have to be strong versus US Dollar so that US higher wage costs can be offset and be more competitive.

Aso should know better; it will be laughter with pain for Japanese exporters.

The world is going to start a new inflation cycle from a cyclical lows of 35-40 years of deflation.
Japan will not be spared; inflation will make a comeback. Two generations of money managers are not exposed to this coming cycle. Havoc and volatility will become much higher from historic lows now. The JGB market will have massive sell-off in due time and Japanese debt fiscal monetary management may collapse. The time bomb is ticking while great complacency in Abe administration is being entrenched. BOJ & MOF will be blamed.

The Emperor friendly & peace gestures should now extend inward to Japan itself and probably need to remind Japan right wing war-stirring elements including PM Abe not to repeat history. A a return to war with its neighbors will bring great tragic to Japanese and Asians. Japanese are Asians and in Asia, not some pseudo-whites. Don't play into US militaristic ambitions; a highly dangerous path. Just look at Middle East; the tragic of war, death & destruction can be seen daily. Be tolerance, live peacefully with your Asian neighbors and stop adding fuel to fire. Prevention is much better. China today is not 70-100 years ago, where it was bullied. Russia is also at the wing. Keep quiet and be contented; don't quarrel over some silly deserted rocks in the ocean.

With NASDAQ at all time record high almost day after day, week after week in past months, and valuation of social media start ups at incredible valuations we are in the madness phase.
This is like end 1999, early 2000.
"""Snap is a great company at the valuation of $500 million,” Global Research Equities analyst Trip Chowdhry said. “It is a total disaster at anything beyond that.”""""
At $20 billion valuation, the Wall Street sweet-talking investment bankers, early angel investors and the firm's founders are "hyena-ing" all the way to the bank.....business as usual institutional investors just blindly buy using our pension money...poor us.

US market has been very strong and pricing in more and more the proposed $1 trillion spent on infrastructure, plus massive tax cuts. Probably Trump will get about 50% of what he proposed done after horse-trading among Republicans.
Rate hikes will be more forthcoming from the Fed. Trump will also have weak Dollar policy as a US economic competitive anchor at the expense of Asian exporting nations like Japan.
So expect relative stronger US market while Asian markets rally will be disappointed as US has basically will disadvantaged Asia exporters.
Trump is basically a contentious, aggressive winner take all guy, adopting an America win all in foreign & trade policies, which in the longer-term is myopic and self-destructive though short-term has been and will be bullish for the US for a while.

Trump US trade position is similar to that of 1980s and Asian trading nations of China, Japan and South Korea will be its target. It will be a weak US Dollar policy through political means in order to gain advantage in trade competitiveness. Trump and his economic advisers are clear on this. Expect Yen and Yuan to be pressurized to appreciate. Is there any other realistic option for the US, where labor costs are higher?

In addition there will be frequent tariffs slapped on imports from Japan, China, etc....on car parts, machineries, etc. as part of the overall approach. It will be contentious. Trump is definitely more aggressive that Reagan, Bush 1 and Bill Clinton. No outright trade war but a tough time for Asian exporters to US will be likely scenario.
Trump "America First" is indirectly "Beggar thy neighbor policy".

Because of a golf-game the relationship becomes solid; it just reflects how superficial & exaggerated it can be. The underlying complex tension in North Asia is escalating steadily; North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan & the USA....the probability of bad outcome & conflicts is rising.
And on top of that in Europe, a bigger shocker than Brexit for the world is building up; a surprise Le-Penn victory in France & the likelihood of black-swan event of the breaking-up of EU.

Japan is becoming a vassal state of USA, that will be saying Yes to Trump all the time soon.
Trump will be able to extract maximum benefits both near term and medium term.
Japan will have to import much more agriculture products, etc from USA.
Trump cheap $ policy as well as security alliance are his "trump" cards on Japan.

On surface it will be a resounding success.
However, Japan will be paying a high price as Trump extracts maximum commitments and money from Abe.
Yen talk will be informal and low key, but there will always be a "cheap $ weapon policy" that Trump can use anytime later. A key economic policy stance of Trump and his economic advisers.
In the meantime for strategic alliance, Japan has to open up buy much more more imports including agriculture & car products, break down informal barriers, make huge investments in US, etc.
It will be a Japan that keep saying, Yes to USA.

Historically, kow-towing and paying tribute to the powerful country by weaker countries usually work.
Given that Trump is so attention seeking and likely egoistic, Abe approach should fit into Trump psychological needs like a glove. Expect at least on surface a big resounding success; Trump will re-affirm the "great alliance between US & Japan."

Just eat and chew 3 to 5 stalks of organic raw celery everyday (cost about $2) and do that for 3 months, your blood will be cleansed, cholesterol will drop significantly and without any adverse side effects.
Total costs $180. Just need plain simple discipline.

Trump will be demanding strong terms on Abe and get likely all of them:

Stronger Yen
Pay more for military costs
Invest lots of money & share Japan's technology with US
Open up agriculture & import more from US.
Will Trump affirms strong US-Japan military alliance.
It is steadily heading in that direction. Trump got Abe in his "hands".
Both will appear very happy on the "win-win" conclusion of the 10th & 11th Feb meeting.

There is no need to do the "cultural thing" of clearing snow from the roof. Every year we hear of this tragic of unnecessary loss of lives.
The roof if appropriately designed with the proper slant and materials will be able to take the weight of snow and not accumulate too much snow.
So the root is building control on architectural and engineering specifications, which Japan should be excellent.
Overtime the snow will melt or slight off on certain weather conditions. There are safer ways to cause the snow to slight off than climbing on the roof in harsh winter conditions to clear snow.

Health Authorities should make compulsory for oncologists to disclose what is the cure rate of each type and stage of cancer in past 20 to 30 years based on actual data & track record, so that patients can make informed decisions on chemotherapy and other mainstream treatments, which are not only costly, torturous but probably has very low success cure rate for advanced cancers.

This whole cancer industry has been much monopolized by a few big pharmaceutical firms that likely care much more for their profits and lock-in power to prolong high profits' structure than curing patients in cost effective and efficient way. The financial interests are opposed.

Feel sorry for her. As a cancer caregiver, I recommend a holistic approach for cancer patients:
Major change in lifestyle and attitude needed in addition to double-edged sword chemotherapy treatments.
Basic principles and areas of focus are:

Drink lots of clean and active water that contains selenium, potassium, magnesium, etc
Consume lots of green leafy vegetables & fruits that are alkaline & bitter in nature
Do lots of different deep breathing exercises; while walking, sitting, lying down; Chinese qigong is good
Get direct morning sun with consumption of vitamin D3, other supplements like Japanese seaweed Fucoidan is useful
Walk at about 5km a day in gardens or forested area, where there is lots of negative ions, with thick clothing to ensure perspiration, while breathing deeply
Smile, laugh, be thankful with an appreciative heart; look at the good, happy, loving side; a merry heart does good like a medicine
Trust God (read the Bible and pray), for whatever outcome but go about with best efforts to build a healthy, fit body and mind.
Cancers have claimed many lives and chemo treatments can be torturous; a comprehensive holistic approach is highly recommended to fight and overcome.

Recently, spoke to a troubled Filipina. She told me, her drug addict husband is still harassing her 4 children and she have to work overseas as a maid to support her children. Her husband stole even the spoons, and ribbed off the home electricity cables to sell them to feed his addiction, and this has been going on for many years. Ask the millions of Filipina mothers who are working hard to send money back to bring up their children? Many have generally the same story. This story is played out in probably millions of Filipina families in a land of 98 million. Therein lies the reason why Duterte is so popular.

President Duterte is extremely popular with the Philippines people; they voted, supported and love him. Drugs had destroyed many, many lives and families in the Philippines. Now Duterte is waging the 2nd war, war against officials' corruption. If he rules the Philippines for 20 more years, the Philippines will become the 2nd Singapore in ASEAN; strong & rich. He is doing a "Singapore 60s & 70s policies" but with much stronger rhetoric and tougher actions.